Aberdeen '˜best location in UK to start a business'

Aberdeen has been named as the best location in the UK to start a business based on factors including survival rates, costs and access to skilled staff.

An index ranking the 30 largest locations put the Scottish city ahead of the likes of London, Manchester and Oxford, thanks to it having the best five-year survival rate for new companies in the UK (54 per cent) and the ninth highest level of start-up growth.

However, Scotland’s largest cities performed poorly in the rankings with Glasgow placed at sixth and Edinburgh ninth in a list of locations where there was the least potential for growth for start-ups. London, Birmingham and Manchester were bottom of the ranking.

Aron Priest, co-founder at printing group Solopress, which compiled the report, said: “Aberdeen has been able to recover from oil and gas setbacks to become a more rounded place to do business. As the city develops new areas of business focus, opportunities for new ventures grow.”

Leicester and Cambridge came in just after Aberdeen in the rankings which also looked at factors such as business rates and the proportion of students as a percentage of the population.

Priest said: “Our findings prove that you don’t need to be in London to make it in the world of business and that there are prosperous places for business all over the UK.”

Earlier this year a report by technology firm Payment Sense also ranked Aberdeen as the best place in the UK based on factors including the diversity of the local economy, quality of digital infrastructure and self-employment rates.